International Officials Join
U.N. for Global Effort to
End Distracted Driving

United Nations Secretary General
Ban Ki-Moon joined U.S. and Russian
representatives at the U.N.
headquarters in New York City on
May 19 to launch a global effort to
end distracted driving, an epidemic
affecting countries across the globe.
Joining Secretary Ban for the announcement
was U.S. Ambassador to
the U.N. Susan Rice, U.S. Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood, Russian
Ambassador Vitaly Churkin as well
as Jennifer Smith, the President of FocusDriven, a U.S.-based victims’
advocacy organization.

At the meeting, Secretary Ban introduced
a directive for the 40,000
United Nations staff which prohibits
employees from texting behind the
wheel in any U.N.-owned vehicles.
This comes in the wake of President
Obama’s Executive Order last fall that
bars nearly 4 million U.S. government
employees from texting while operating
government-owned cell phones,
vehicles or while on official business.

In conjunction with the event, the
State Department reached out to U.S.
embassies around the world to raise
awareness about distracted driving
and to collect data about the issue
from foreign governments.

The announcement comes at a
time when more people across the
globe are getting behind the wheel.
Nearly 600 million cars are on the
road today, with over 4.6 billion cell
phone subscriptions worldwide.
Drivers who are texting are more
than 20 times more likely to crash
than non-distracted drivers. In
2008, approximately 6,000 people
were killed and more than half
a million were injured in crashes
involving distracted driving in the
U.S. alone.

These statistics only exacerbate the
global traffic fatality rate, which claims
1.3 million lives each year—or one life
every 30 seconds. The World Health Organization
estimates that traffic crashes
will climb from the ninth to the fifth leading
cause of death worldwide by 2030.

Ambassador Churkin said, “The
call for action we are making today
is very timely and important. Distracted
driving is one of the major
risk factors for road traffic crashes.
It was highlighted during the First
Global Ministerial Conference on
Road Safety held in Moscow last
November and is reflected in the
U.N. General Assembly resolution
64/255 ‘improving global road safety’
which was presented by Russia.
Russia is ready to engage with the
United States and other interested
countries in defining the ways to
mainstream it into global road safety
cooperation agenda.”

In February, the U.N. General Assembly
passed a resolution declaring
the decade of 2011-2020 as the
“Decade of Action on Road Safety”
with a goal to stabilize and then reduce
the forecast level of global road
deaths by 2020. The U.S. State Department
is spearheading an effort to
develop a strategy for implementing
the declaration. Federal agencies, as
well as NGOs and their members, will
be invited to participate in the strategic
planning effort.